Sunday, September 14, 2014

Outlander 1.6: Outstanding

Well, I've been watching and much enjoying Outlander - enjoying it as historical fiction not time travel - but tonight's episode 1.6 was just outstanding.

We finally see what Black Jack is made of, and it's ugly indeed. I don't like half-hearted villains. One of the things that made Alfred Hitchcock's movies so memorable is that his villains were bad through and through, like Bruno Anthony in Strangers on a Train,who, dying, still points his finger to frame an innocent man. Black Jack appears to be just as bad - he nearly whipped Jamie to death and came to enjoy it as art, and he's likely to do the same to Claire if she doesn't tell him what he wants and he can get away with it.

The question is what makes him so bad, especially given that he has some obvious connection, not yet revealed in the television series, to Claire's husband in the 20th century. Is the message here that time mellows a bloodline, if Black Jack is Frank's ancestor? Whatever the explanation, and whatever its resolution in subsequent episodes and seasons, Tobias Menzies has given this all-but-depraved character a sterling performance.

Meanwhile, Dougal's plan that Claire marry Jamie as the only way she can be legally protected from Black Jack and the redcoats is a good one, both for the logic of the story and because Jamie and Claire go so well together. But if they have children, what role will their descendants play in the 20th century, where Claire is also alive? At very least, it avoids the possibly incestuous consequences of Claire sleeping with Black Jack out of love for Frank.

Ah, but this goes back to the paradoxes of time travel, which so far Outlander has been little about.

What it is excelling at beautifully is a story of how a woman with future sensibilities and literal experience can fare in a wilder time two centuries before her. I'm looking forward to the two final episodes of this inaugural season, and Season 2 and beyond.

About Me

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication &
Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997),
Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the
subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science
Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).His short stories
have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.Paul Levinson appears on "The
O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"“NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),“Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous
national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of
television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of
Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

e-mail received from a reader:Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchidren. Thanks! Tom